Techaisle Survey Identifies Top 5 Post-COVID-19 Investment Areas by Midmarket Firms

Many channel partner firms are revisiting their business strategy for this year and beyond. In the midmarket, Techaisle provides the top five post-COVID-19 investment areas to consider.

A recent Techaisle worldwide survey of midmarket firms found that collaboration, security, cloud, remote work and digital transformation are where these companies are increasing their spending.

Techaisle’s Anurag Agrawal

The survey serves as a guide for partners as to where they should focus their attention, according to Anurag Agrawal, CEO and analyst at Techaisle.

More specifically, partners looking at this midmarket tech spending need to think about their expertise in each area. “For example, remote working is broad. Partners may have skills in deploying VDI or DaaS or SD-WAN,” Agrawal told Channel Futures. “Similarly, digital transformation is broad. Once partners identify their expertise, they can focus on solutions.

Partners should also consider developing relevant and empathetic solutions that address the top five needs of the midmarket customers. Additionally, they’ll have to develop the skill sets to architect, deploy and manage solutions that address what the buyer cares about. And, partners don’t have to go it alone. “They can generate new asks from their vendor partners for relevant use cases, guidance and incentives to pivot their solutions to meet the needs,” said Agrawal.

A Closer Look at the Numbers

With the global pandemic, interest in collaboration solutions has grabbed the attention of businesses of all sizes. However, 72% of midmarket firms are increasing investment in collaboration solutions, according to the Techaisle survey. That’s in contrast to 15% of survey respondents who are either decreasing or delaying investments.

Collaboration was of interest before the pandemic. New market conditions, however, have put a spotlight on the technology. “And, those collaborative technology solutions are being acquired which are positioned as a framework that integrates and extends the value of discrete capabilities rather than as a first-step platform,” said Agrawal.

Sixty-nine percent of midmarket firms are increasing their investment in security solutions. This technology is an enabler of business and enabling innovation throughout the IT business infrastructure.

Cloud addresses real-world IT issues and business challenges, said Techaisle. Some 66% of survey respondents note that their firms are increasing investments in cloud. Cloud addresses budget restraints and cloud infrastructure can be deployed quickly and at low cost. Not to mention that companies like the pay-as-you-go way of financing business expenditures.

Rethinking business

COVID-19 forced the issue of a remote workforce for many businesses. Sixty-five percent of midmarket firms are increasing investments in remote working, according to the Techaisle survey. These firms are investing to automate control of sprawling mobile assets. Investment areas include security solutions such as mobile device management, mobile app security and secure mobile data sharing. Another area for spending is automated management such as mobile network control and enterprise mobile management. These firms will also spend on deploying infrastructure that addresses their mobile workers — for example, windows-as-a-service, VDI or DaaS.

The fifth area where midmarket firms are upping their investments is digital transformation. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents are increasing investments in this area. Techaisle acknowledges that digital transformation isn’t cloud. “Mature cloud adoption does not equate to high digitization of the business.”

Rather, Agrawal notes that “The road map to successful digital transformation begins with the creation of a sound physical infrastructure — the ‘building blocks’ or ‘foundations’ of business infrastructure.”

This requires the adoption of multiple technology solutions.